


Of Hobbies and Cars

by 530_and_some_fandoms



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 2012 avengers, Avengers Family, Bruce Banner - Freeform, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton & Tony Stark Friendship, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Avengers, Gen, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pizza, Post-Avengers (2012), Steve Rogers & Thor Friendship, Thor Odinson - Freeform, avengers activity nights, clint barton - Freeform, natasha romanov - Freeform, steve rogers - Freeform, tony stark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24500743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/530_and_some_fandoms/pseuds/530_and_some_fandoms
Summary: Every Friday, the Avengers have an activity night. They cycle through which Avenger gets to choose what activity to do that night, which usually involves everyone's hobbies or favorite things to do. But not Tony.OrThe Avengers try to figure out what Tony likes to do in his free time{This work is inspired by a prompt}
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72





	Of Hobbies and Cars

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be for Tony's birthday, but you see how that went. Writer's block is awful, so I didn't get much done until now.   
> Also, I only spell checked this and didn't bother to read through it, so please be kind if there is anything wrong. I am so tired of this story. I have been working on it for months upon months and am so glad it is finished.

Avenger's Tower was sort of a safe space; at least for most of the Avengers. It became a place to relax after missions, have fun, and pretend to be normal (as normal as a group of dysfunctional superheroes could be anyway). 

As a part of this relaxation and bonding, the Avengers held a weekly activity night, which consisted of a chosen activity by a person in rotation. 

The activities were most always entertaining. Steve often led a painting “class” or wanted to watch modern movies. Clint instituted Mario Kart competitions more often than not. Bruce liked to have everyone cook dinner together, or have what could be considered a pot-luck dinner, asking everyone to bring their own dishes and have a large team dinner. Natasha always did a book club of sorts. Have everyone explain what they were reading at the moment, whether it be mission reports or instructions for building end tables, which lead to some interesting nights and explanations. The only exception to the fun was perhaps Thor. He often insisted on telling his marvellous tales of battle when he was younger. Although they sounded very interesting at the start, it wasn’t uncommon for them to last several hours with the amount of fine detail Thor recalled. As a result, he lost attention pretty quickly, but never seemed to notice.

Otherwise, the activities were nice, a good break from a day of work, whether it be a mission, paperwork, science, or running a company. It gave everyone something to relieve stress and anxiety through, or simply something else to focus on. The weekly activities also served as team bonding, and helped everyone get to know each other and what they enjoyed. 

That is, everyone except Tony.

Tony was interesting. He was a bit of a recluse, always in his lab working on something or another. Sometimes, the only time anyone saw him was when he came up for the weekly activity, and sometimes he didn’t even show up then at all. Most of the time, if anyone saw him, it looked like the man hadn’t slept in a week. Which, however awful, did make a bit of sense. He was still at the head of an international company, even if Pepper was the current CEO. He was the public face of the company, and head of R&D.

Still, more often than not, he would show up for the Weekly Bonding Activity with his signature wit and ego. He always chose a movie, something Steve hasn’t watched or something he himself thought needed rewatching. 

The movies Tony chose, no matter how entertaining, never really contributed to learning about his personality, even though everyone did learn a bit about his movie taste (which consisted of older movies). 

The learning of personalities was a bit of a common theme throughout the whole activity, but they were also supported by the fact that the rest of The Avengers usually hung out on the same floor, allowing them all to get to know each other by just spending their days together. And because Tony never came out of his lab, everyone (excluding Bruce and possibly Natahsa) knew next to nothing about the man that was feeding and housing them. 

In itself, the housing and feeding wasn’t a small feat, but piled on top of it, Tony was “their” engineer. If they had a problem with their gear, they went to him. Though they begged him (weakly) just to update their stuff, he ended up scrapping it almost completely and building a new model entirely. He also went to countless meetings, or was supposed to, and designed or built stuff for his work. The man was no doubt busy.

And yet somehow, The Avengers were still confused on why Tony never showed his face on the Common Floor. To Tony it was common knowledge. He was busy after all, and wasn’t really a part of the team, though most of the team didn’t know that.

It was annoying when they invaded his space though.

On Tuesday morning, after hours upon hours of designing, building, and tweaking on a slew of nice new arrows for Clint, Tony managed to drag himself up from the Lab to the Common Floor. Really, J.A.R.V.I.S. had insisted, saying he hadn’t consumed anything other than coffee in 10 hours and hadn’t slept in 48. Though it was understandable, and Tony was exhausted anyway. 

Besides ,the coffee maker was somehow faster on the Common Floor than in the Penthouse, and it took less time to get there, so Tony could understand. And the fact the J.A.R.V.I.S. had most of the say in his floor choice, he didn’t really have a choice. 

“J, what time is it,” Tony slurred, exhausted. 

“It is 6:37,” He rubbed his eyes, trying to get the blurriness out of them. Sure, he had been awake longer than 48 hours before, but that was before the Avengers came to live with him a few months ago. Since then, either Bruce, Pepper, or (unfortunately) Steve, came in to check on him if he was in the Lab longer than 12 hours, which resulted in him sleeping and eating more often. 

_ They must have been away on a mission or something,  _ Tony mused. There had to have been some reason why they didn’t come looking for him. Pepper was on a business trip in China, so she couldn't have been here anyway. 

He dragged himself to the Common Room kitchen when the elevator arrived after what seemed like hours. The coffee maker was already running (“Thank God,” Tony muttered). Tony stared at the coffee maker, slightly delirious, until it finished brewing the sacred drink. He poured himself a large mug and downed it in less than 30 seconds.

“You know that was my coffee, right?” a voice said from the counter. Tony turned around.

Perched on top of the counter was none other than Clint Barton, who’s eyebags could probably rival Tony’s. As soon as Tony turned around, however, Clint recoiled. 

“Shit man. How long have you been awake?”

“Not long,” Tony replied at the same time J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “Sir has been awake for 48 hours and 37 minutes,”

Clint’s eyes widened. 

“In retrospect, I’ve stayed up longer,” Tony said in a weak attempt to defend himself. “Where are Bruce and Steve anyway?”

“They were called in last night,” Clint said. Tony nodded and took a long sip of his second cup of coffee.

“You have to be awake for the thing tonight,” Clint whined.

“The thing?” 

“You know,” Clint waved his hands, “Activity night. Makes me sound like a kid,” Oh yeah. It was Friday. Activity night. And Tony was incharge of tonight. 

“What do you have planned?” Clint asked. Tony shrugged in response. His vision was getting less blurry by the minute. Maybe after coffee and a snack he could go back down to the lab for an hour or so. 

“Probably a movie or something,” Clint frowned. 

“You always choose a movie. What do you even do in your spare time?” Tony shrugged yet again.

“No time to spare in housing you hooligans,” Clint made a face. 

“I’m not a hooligan,” Tony snorted into his coffee before finishing it off and going to the fridge and grabbing a packaged yogurt, “Keep telling yourself that,” 

“If anything, you’re the hooligan for not sleeping for two days,” 

“If this is an attempt to get me to sleep, I have J for that,”

“I’m just giving you tips man,” he fidgeted with his hearing aids before saying, “But I still think you should get some sleep,”

“Thanks Legolas,” Tony said, eating the last bit of yogurt and throwing the package into the garbage and making his way to the elevator, “That was my plan,” 

“Sweet dreams!” Clint called after him. When the elevator doors closed, Tony snorted. “Sweet dreams” indeed. 

Tony ended up waking up bright and early at six in the evening. The sun was hanging low in the sky. Winter was approaching. Tony shuddered as he made his way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He never did like winter, especially since Afghanistan. The arc reactor always seemed to be cold, no matter where he went or how many layers he had on, which made everything even more unpleasant. 

He had just finished his coffee and was about to go back down to the lab again when J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke. 

“Captain Rogers is requesting your presence on the Commons Floor,” Tony groaned inwardly. If he had to take a guess, the Captain would lecture him on not sleeping and eating. 

Reluctantly, he stepped into the elevator. Then he remembered that he was in charge of the activity for tonight. Maybe it was just about the activity. 

It didn’t take long for Tony to arrive on the Commons Floor. When he stepped out of the elevator, he glanced over the room. 

Everyone was here, but that wasn’t saying much. Natasha was chatting with Bruce and Clint while Steve and Thor sat at opposite ends of the kitchen counter, each seemingly caught up in their own thoughts. 

When Tony walked out of the elevator, however, Steve perked up and walked over to him. Maybe he wouldn’t lecture him after all. He didn’t have the “I’m not mad, just disappointed” look in his eye. 

“Tony. We were just wondering where you were,” Steve said with a smile as if he hadn’t summoned Tony moments before. 

“Well, I’m here now,” Tony said. Steve nodded. 

“We were just about to order take-out. What do you want?” In all sincerity, Tony wasn’t really all that hungry, but he still felt that he had to appease the good captain. 

“I could go for some pizza,” Tony said. Steve nodded and went off to talk to the others. Did he know that he could just ask J.A.R.V.I.S. and be done with it? 

Tony shrugged internally. It had been barely months since Steve had gotten out of the ice. He still needed to adjust. 

Tony walked over to Bruce, the two of them chatting about the projects they were working on at the moment or planned to start. Tony’s suggestion of making Bruce super stretchy pants so that he didn’t have to lose his pants every time The Other Guy came out made Bruce’s ears turn tomato red. Soon, however, the conversation turned a little more somber. 

“Why were you called in by the way?” Bruce shrugged. 

“There was a situation, and I’m technically not allowed to discuss it. The Other Guy wasn’t needed though, so it went well if we were to go by that,” Tony nodded.

“Did you get any sleep?” Bruce asked. 

“Today, yes,” Bruce glared at Tony, but there was no real fire behind it. Tony relented, “But before that, yeah, I may have not slept for two days. Ish,” 

“Tony,” Bruce said. He was probably exhausted of his antics, Tony realized. 

Instead of dwelling on that, he played it off. 

“I mean, both of my keepers were gone, you and Cap. Who else was supposed to drag me out of the Lab?” 

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Bruce said.

“He may have reminded me a few times. I might not have listened. If it makes you feel any better, I got twelve hours of wonderful sleep today,” 

It wasn’t particularly wonderful, what with nightmares, but at least he got sleep. That’s what he told himself. 

“Doesn’t make me feel all that better,” Bruce muttered. 

Before their conversation could carry on anymore however, the pizza arrived from a starstruck delivery boy. Clint took the pizza out of the kid’s hands, handed him a wad of cash and sent him off. 

From then on, all of Tony’s energy was focused on eating. Though he had been asleep for most of the day, he was still starving. He grabbed a couple of pieces of pepperoni and distanced himself from the rest of the group. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them; he just wanted to avoid any prying question. 

Unfortunately, a certain spy sat next to him. Natasha was quiet for a minute, eating her hawiian pizza silently. Who knew she was one for pineapple on pizza? 

“I heard about your early morning exploits,” she said after polishing off her first slice. 

“Yeah, Clint is a snitch isn’t he?” Natasha gave a small laugh.

“Yeah, he is,” she took another bite of her pizza.

“What do you plan on doing for your thing tonight?” she said after swallowing her bite. 

“A movie. Steve hasn’t watched Star Wars yet, has he?” Natasha shook her head.

“He’s the only unspoiled adult in America,” Tony mused. “That’s gotta count for something,” 

“He was frozen for 70 years Tony, cut him some slack,”

“It’s hard to when he doesn’t know Darth-”

“You know he can hear you right?”

“I doubt tha-”

“I  _ can  _ hear you Tony,” Steve called over from the other side of the room. Tony rolled his eyes. Of course the soldier could hear them when they were basically whispering in a corner. 

“You always do a movie,” Natahsa mused. 

“And you always do your strange little book club,” Natasha glanced over at Tony, “Is it wrong to appreciate movie culture now?” 

“I never said that,” she said, “But I read, Steve paints, Thor tells stories, and Clint plays video games,” Tony was seeing a trend. “Do you just watch movies?” 

“You and Clint really are on the same page, aren’t you?” Natasha shrugged.

“He’s an idiot, but he’s my best friend. We talk to say the least,” 

“Just talking?” 

“Just talking.” Natasha confirmed. 

Their conversation fell silent after that.

All of the team had a specific hobby, much different from their superhero alternate identity. And then there was Tony. His skill set, an engineer, mechanic, whatever you wanted to call him. That was his hobby. He got to do what he loved as a job. 

Though, it wasn’t like he could just throw everyone in the Lab and expect someone (Clint) not to break anything. He couldn’t just say, “Hey, today we will be building things,”. The team probably wouldn’t like that. 

Then again, Tony didn’t particularly like Steve’s painting lessons, and no one liked Thor’s stories after the first two minutes. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be such an awful idea. 

Over the next six weeks, Tony planned a small activity whenever he could, which meant when Bruce wasn’t around and Steve wasn’t barging in, or when he wasn’t working on another project. 

It was a little bit hard to work around his schedule, but in a couple weeks, he had made six small kits of parts for the team.

If they really wanted to know what he did in his spare time, here it was. 

When it was Tony’s turn for activity night, they ordered pizza again and the same delivery boy came, still starstruck. 

After everyone finished their pizza, Thor spoke up. 

“So what film will we be watching tonight?” everyone glanced over to Tony, who had a grin on his face. 

“Actually, I decided we wouldn’t be watching a movie tonight,” 

“That’s a first,” Clint said with a snort. 

“Follow me,” Tony said with a smile as he walked toward the elevator. He looked over his shoulder and watched Clint shrug before beginning to follow him, starting a chain that caused the rest of the Avengers to follow. 

It was a bit of a tight squeeze in the elevator, but everyone managed to fit in. The elevator immediately started moving as soon as everyone was piled inside as Tony had already told J.A.R.V.I.S. where he wanted to go. 

As soon as the elevator stopped, the doors opened, letting the Avengers spill into one of the empty labs. Or it was empty until about two hours ago. Now there were six tables set up in the middle of the lab, each with their own basket of goods set on top. Tony walked to the table at the front as the other Avengers spread out to the other tables. 

“Welcome to Tony Stark’s building challenge,” Tony said, smiling widely at the team’s confused looks. 

“I put some instructions underneath the basket, so you all shouldn’t be completely lost. You have an hour to complete it to the best of your ability. J.A.R.V.I.S. will give us a winner at the end of the hour. Any questions?”

Clint raised his hand. Tony pointed on him. 

“What are we supposed to be building?” 

“That is for me to know and you to figure out,” Tony said simply. “Anyone else?” 

No one asked anymore questions, rather, each of them glanced at the others to see if they had any questions. 

“Your time starts now!” Tony called, causing everyone except Natasha and Clint to jump. They all went to frantically building what was on their tables, pulling out the instructions and discerning pieces from one another so they could build correctly. 

It was a bit entertaining to watch, Tony realized. Thor was struggling a bit, asking Bruce, who was next to him, if any of “this strange mortal technology” made any sense. Bruce was trying to answer, but he seemed exasperated at his own project. 

Steve, surprisingly, looked like he was farthest along, closely followed by Natasha. Clint was just turning the instructions up and around, claiming that all the ways were upside down. 

“Why did you do this to us?” Clint said as Tony walked around the tables, giving cryptic hints and tips. 

“You did say you wanted to know what I liked to do, right?” Tony smiled impishly. 

“Yeah, not like this though,” 

“I don’t really even do this. I build all my stuff without explicit instructions if you can believe it,” 

“How?” 

“Genius, remember?” Clint groaned and went back to working on a clump of wires that looked nothing like what he was supposed to be building. 

Both Natasha and Steve looked about halfway done in about 20 minutes, while Thor and Bruce were about a third of the way through, working together. Clint was just hopeless. He still had a useless lump of wires and metal in front of him. It was supposed to be a toy car. Tony couldn't fathom how Clint had messed it up so bad. 

“You find this fun?” Clint said as Tony walked around again at about the 40 minute mark. 

“Hey, Cap over there finds painting fun and is from the 40s. He’s still doing better than you,”

“You don’t have to remind me,” 

“And the instructions go this way,” Tony said, turning them around. How Clint had made it this far in life, he would never know. 

After that, Clint fared slightly better, turning his messy lump into a more organized lump. It got a lot better after Natasha finished and came over to help Clint. It involved a lot of head shaking on Natasha’s part however, so Tony didn’t know how much Clint was actually contributing. 

Bruce and Thor just barely managed to finish before time ran out. Clint (and by extension, Natasha) were nowhere close, but put in a good effort anyway.

“And hands up!” Tony said, mimicking those cooking shows that always seemed to be playing on the Common Floor if he came up there in the mid-afternoon. 

All of the Avengers threw their hands up, whether or not they were finished. 

“J?” 

“Four of five of the participants finished, which means there has to be a race,”  
“A race?” Steve questioned. Tony motioned over to the ramp that had remained just out of sight for the hour. 

The four finishers grabbed their cars and walked over to the ramp. Clint moped next to Tony as he watched everyone else put their cars in front of a spring in each lane. The springs were for fair game, because putting a god and a supersoldier against three relatively normal humans would not be fair whatsoever. Thus, springs. 

“Step back from your cars,” J.A.R.V.I.S. announced when all the cars were in place.

“This reminds me of a pinewood derby,” Clint said from beside Tony.

“That’s the point, Birdbrain,” Tony said with a smile. 

“But I don’t think the pinewood derby had speed bumps in the middle of the ramp,” he said, pointing to three metal bumps that divided the ramp into fourths,” 

“That’s for the race. Just to make it a bit more interesting. 

“On your mark, get set, go,” Tony shouted. The springs launched the cars from the start and down the ramp. Thor’s ran over a bump in the ramp and the wires inside fizzed and brought it to a stop. 

“Why did that happen?” Bruce asked. He has worked with Thor after all and his car didn’t short out. 

“The wires were designed so that if they weren’t placed a certain way they would short out over the bumps,” Tony said, watching as the cars continued to race down the ramp. 

Natasha’s was in the lead, but then they went over another speed bump and that slowed her car down considerably. Allowing Bruce’s car to take a small lead with Steve’s car about a length behind.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t much cheering on the sidelines. Natasha was quiet, completely focused on glaring at her car as if willing it to go faster. Steve was also staring, but he was looking worried. He stared at his car with his Disappointed look, as if the car’s speed would bend to his will if he looked hard enough. Bruce was a little louder, cheering slightly when his car took a larger lead over Natasha’s. 

However, Clint and Thor were pretty loud. Clint was openly cheering for Natasha’s car, and Thor just seemed to like the race in general. 

Tony couldn’t blame him. It was one of his more entertaining ideas that applied to the whole team. 

The cars went over the third and final bump, securing Bruce’s lead. Clint let out a cheer of disappointment, while Thor shouted in happiness. Natasha continued to glare at her car and Steve still looked disappointed as his car went over the final bump seconds after the other cars. 

Finally, the cars reached the end of the ramp, Bruce’s car coming in first, with Natasha in second, and Steve in third. 

Each of the Avengers collected their cars from the end of the ramp. Thor went over to give Steve a pat on the back, which almost knocked the supersoldier over. 

“It is okay friend. I’m sure you will win next time,” he said. 

Bruce and Natasha shook hands, as Clint booed their formalities while he had his arms slung over Natasha’s shoulder. Tony smiled. This crazy plan of his had been a success. 

Bruce walked over to Tony, a smile on his face. 

“That was way better than watching a movie,” Tony nodded.

“Yeah, it was,”

“And I think everyone really liked it. Are you going to be doing it again?” 

“I think so. If everyone liked it, like you said, then I think it would be good for the team. Sneak some engineering techniques in there somewhere,”

Bruce nodded to what Tony was saying. 

“It wasn’t a bad idea in the slightest,” the man said, “And it wasn’t quite as frustrating as I thought it would be,”

“That’s good,” Tony said, not bringing up the fact that Bruce had to walk through the project with Thor, which probably would have gotten frustrating as well.

“How’d you come up with it?” Tony looked over. Bruce was regarding him carefully with a trace of a smile on his face. 

“Well, it took some convincing, but you guys wanted me to open up some more,” Tony grabbed a car that was left abandoned on a table. The one that Tony himself built when he wasn’t walking around. “Here it is,” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Sorry for the awful ending, but like I said at the top. I am very tired of this story. I might go back and change it a bit later, but its almost 11 so I need to sleep.


End file.
